FatDog is noticeably faster than Saluki 23 . I just received my used PC this afternoon. Saluki was helpful for about an hour then I booted into FatDog. NICE

I honestly think people don't know how outdated & unnecessary old PC's are. I'm not selling anything... but maybe you know what I mean... Bottom line, for under $75 it's like a NEW WORLD getting away from my P4 (yikes why did I wait)...

UPDATE: I'll try to get some junkers off my site and concentrate more on puppy's. I guess the variety has become counter-productive, but I'm not fully agreeing w/your sage of wisdom, yet.Edited_time_total

Sending you a set of go-faster stripes in the post. You'll need to speak to your President or your shrink about your lemming-itis and your sense of public duty towards landfill, lack of spirit of ingenuity, &co. Hope you're not in need of a humour transplant, too!

Managed to free up an HD for an FD610 FULL. Went like clockwork yielding a very nice result, thanks, kirk & jb. Presently got it chained with a Nadia install so I could test the GRUB4DOS re-write for both - no problems there, either.
So far the only niggle is that too short time-out for searching wifi. On second thoughts, can't distinguish whether it's too short or just failing on first ask?
Not important, probably my misunderstanding, pfix=ram, nox prior to installing yields the prompt but xorgwizard not available (somebody say that already?) so only X option is xwin. Gives correct video detection on several machines so not an issue.
This control Panel is the best of the lot; should suit the 'doze refugees.

Just ran a test of 610 again on another machine, while I was browsing this topic, to make sure I was right about something others were missing.

On a machine with an fd64save.ext4 file in the base directory of the file system "pfix=ram" does not prevent the save file from being loaded. Sage avoids this only by not having a save file, not because the pfix flag stops loading. "savefile=none" does prevent loading.
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On the subject of video graphics, please, don't load the KMS module until it is clear that you need it. Leave a route people can use to install a proprietary nVidia driver if there are no acceptable open source drivers.

When I was working with Gentoo there were always open source wrappers for nVidia proprietary drivers we could compile even as kernels evolved. Has this changed?

I would prefer complete open source drivers, but I'm not going to pretend these are keeping pace with changes nVidia introduces. ATI provides enough information for developers. nVidia may not.

There may also be problems with Matrox drivers, though it has been a while since I've fooled with these.

On the subject of video graphics, please, don't load the KMS module until it is clear that you need it. Leave a route people can use to install a proprietary nVidia driver if there are no acceptable open source drivers.

When I was working with Gentoo there were always open source wrappers for nVidia proprietary drivers we could compile even as kernels evolved. Has this changed?

KMS is required for most Intel graphics. With Nvidia, Fatdog64's Xorg will use:

Unfortunately this isn't always the best choice. Sometime's nouveau may give you problems and you'll want to try the nv driver. James' new xorgwizard should make this easier. And to switch to the nv driver, if the nouveau kernel module claims your card's PCID, you should delete/blacklist the nouveau module.

Many (most?) boards refuse to show the BIOS screen with my Matrox cards so booting into VESA would be an innovation!
Thanks for 611, kirk. Mirrors, including the Dutch, are not showing up yet. Could be a long haul.

611:
Now getting list of video cards after pfix=ram,nox but hitting 'SiS' yields 'cancelled' - but the default still works (mesa?).
Still need two hits on scan to get a positive detection on wireless.
Otherwise, OK.
Haven't attempted FULL, yet, was enquiring about deltas?

Unfortunately this isn't always the best choice. Sometime's nouveau may give you problems and you'll want to try the nv driver. James' new xorgwizard should make this easier. And to switch to the nv driver, if the nouveau kernel module claims your card's PCID, you should delete/blacklist the nouveau module.

For Matrox the vesa driver is the only option included.

The vesa, nv and nouveau drivers are all open-source. What I'm trying to ask is if this is a policy decision on your part, or a new fact of life. Has nVidia stopped supplying proprietary drivers which can be incorporated in Linux kernels through an open-source wrapper? Here's one that might be appropriate.

If this is a project which needs someone else to package it, I suspect there are people with more powerful nVidia cards than mine who would take it on to get the most out of their cards.

James has made a couple Nvidia pet packages for 610/611 of the proprietary Nvidia driver, they're in the repo. That would be the recommend way to go. Check first that your card is supported by the versions that James has labeled the pet packages with.

Also Nvidia provides a installer in a .run package, though I haven't tried that for a while. If it still works with Fatdog64 you'll need the devx file attached so it can compile it's kernel module.

Thanks for clarifying that. I was afraid there was some policy decision of avoiding them in the future. For myself, I have an adequate solution at present with an off-board card from ATI. I won't go back and fight battles with the embedded nVidia graphics unless you need this tested.

You might want to better document the availability of those pets for people who only get to a desktop by using VESA, to let them know this is not a dead end.